In the USA we transfer a lot of freight by rail.
Trucks are used when rail isn't practical or doesn't exist.
Trucks are used when rail isn't practical or doesn't exist.
It is very well optimized and efficient, but you're not going to order something with standard UPS or Fedex style shipping and see it delivered by rail. Whereas in days past the railroad covered a significant amount of mail and parcel shipping due to higher service speeds and frequencies.
I do wonder if there could be room for better logistics and an expansion of rail to cover faster (ie < 2 weeks) shipping scenarios, but this would require investing in the rail and signaling infrastructure and opening and infrastructure to competing service providers.
My package from China has arrived by rail, it took about 3 whleeks, and Aliexpress tracking showed it going through kazahstan and Russia
This does result in usually less tonnage transported by rail, but service that is more flexible to faster shipping.
For a lot of things, consumers are like "What do you mean I won't get it for 2+ weeks?" CANCEL.
I haven't done the math myself, but I suspect we are all subsidizing interstate trucking (and perhaps air freight) compared to its actual infrastructure and emissions costs. This does lower prices of many essential goods, but also tilts things in favor of large corporations who can ship things cheaply all over the country (ie Walmart, Amazon).
In general, I suspect that if most of us went back in time 25-30 years we'd be pretty shocked about just how much friction there was to everything. It's not a linear or absolute improvement--and some of the downsides are significant. (Cities you often wouldn't have wanted to live in back then are really expensive today.) But you also spent a lot of time and effort doing things that are essentially effortless today.
There also used to be these computer shows (Ken Gordon?) at local event centers where vendors would have all sorts of parts and CDs for sale. But mostly you bought your big ad-filled computer magazine and called a number. By late 90s, online ordering was coming in. Local "computer stores" (or camera stores or...) were frankly all showing their age by the late 80s or so.
There can be value to local merchants. But it's harder to make the case for local distributors of mainstream manufactured equipment.
This isn't actually true, huge amounts of small parcel ground shipping goes by rail. You're correct that it's slower, but not by a huge amount.
Costs grow enormously to shrink delivery times from around a week cross-country to only a few days, by far the best option is moving the fulfillment point closer to the destination. Amazon, Target, Walmart, Uline are some companies that do 1-2 day shipping cheaply almost anywhere by ground.
If you want to do a quick test yourself , next time you are on a highway look at the places the trucks are from (obviously they can be registered elsewhere but it gives you an idea).
If you import to a port it usually travels by rail after (cause ports have great rail links) but if you are going business to business in the US it’s often by truck
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=plot+United+States+rail...